Land of Pictures 24
Sitemap Picture Commentary Continued PAGE 24 : Awesomely Awesome Pretty Pictures (the very best part of this Wiki) ---- Change that red knobby thing into a blue orb, and we then get a Quantum Projector able to shoot Quantumz goodness anywhere needed. Seriously, Columbia turned into a technological backwater when the World discovered The Quantum (Le Quantuum), and 500x as many brilliant minds and 2000X as much money was applied to developing new Modern Marvels, which then proceeded to change the World. By 1912, "Columbia" was floating in a glass jar in the Smithsonian. Ostentatious ? Why ride about in a drab proletariat conveyance like the other well-to-do people ??? Not a "Bathysphere", but rather a private sub (BTW, far too expensive for more than a few in Rapture). . . . . Get rid of the faux-science so you can concentrate on the faux-religion and faux-history ... For all it mattered Elizabeth might as well have been a Mandril. BRING US THE APE AND WIPE AWAY YOUR DEBTS!!! (Actually not so easy to catch those things, which can climb like monkeys and then throw their feces at you ...) Kinda like having those 'Firemen' goons in a place made of chickenwire and wood lathing and plaster. OH LOOK - In a floating city (no place to run to escape), largely made of wood, YES, LETS HAVE A SECURITY GOON WHO SPEWS FIRE !!!! Tracking intake and export from the 'Subject' is part of this strange 'spying on girl' aspect shown in this game. I suppose it is all in the name of 'science' to investigate this Quantumz Energy thing that we all know that Real Quantum Mechanics are all about. At this point it might have been smart for Booker to Back Away and steal a hover barge and leave this creepy flying city filled with lunatics and then sell it to PAY OFF HIS DEBTS. So this was the intelligence test built into the game to prevent further content from disturbing mentally incompetent Players needlessly (its a puzzle a Retarded Dust Bunny™ could solve). OR if failed 3 time in a row does it let you through anyway and causes adjustment of the content to be Cute Ponies and Muppets and all the blood to be sprays of Candy ?? Maybe its a clever premonition for blasting off from the top of a lighthouse in a feeble recreation of a Mercury capsule, and then going to 'heaven' being normalcy for this games reality ??? This was one Alternate Universe that Elizabeth should NOT have visited. Mass murdering opponents is OK if they are faceless. Modern games long ago discovered that (safe) bodycounts can substitute for imagination. Yes Ken, America in 1900-1910 had stormtroopers everywhere in our American cities ((HE HAD TO, CUZ MASS SHOOTING OF KEYSTONE COPS WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST SICK !!! '' )). Also doesn't it seem funny that the levels you use that "Skyline" in don't have any boxcars/trains blocking their weirdly circular rollercoaster track ... The Game Infinite BS should have been This is a map seen in Atlas's lair in Hestia (Apollo Square). I thought I recognized it, and Yes, it is a map of Medical Center. Probably had all kinds of good drugs there -- Atlas needs something to bribe his minions with when even his ADAM has pretty much run out. "Le Poulet Spastique" Isn't that Hemingway trying to pick a fight ? This Place isn't really Avant-garde enough for that. It is questionable IF all that many artists of any caliber would even come to Rapture, with its tiny venue (and many fewer suckers to buy their 'art'). Artists license is fine. Unfortunately, when you create what are supposed to be buildings, there are some rather hard rules you need to follow about how they are laid out. It also should match the level designer's inside layout, which here the mismatch makes it a bit problematical (inside it sprawls rather large horizontally - so doesnt match this picture at all). Great for 'vision', bad when its not supposed to be a LSD hallucination. Any artist who knows much about Art Deco knows that it is composed of decorations glued onto a functional structure - NOT the other way around. Unfortunately the same artists who created the Bigified/Gianourmous Fantasy rubbish from Infinite BS, which has now contaminated our Rapture. THIS was modern in 1900 (real). When you look at Columbia, what is really all that modern about it for 1893-1912 ?? Under that bad Coney Island facade and that creepy Hummel figurine styling the 'artists' created, Columbia really didn't have much of a forward looking aspect. The FloatyShit™ and unexplained mechanization was just a clumsy regurgitation of old things (ordinary already). "Oh But It Floats !!!" Yeah, but very little was done with that - piss poor for Americans who are supposed to be such innovators. '''Unexceptional BS'. "But They Were Reactionaries !!!" Then why all the weird mechanical shit that WAS there. Shouldn't the population have been aghast at even the idea of living amongst all those satan-born mechanical attrocities ??? They would have stoned Comstock to death, and then burnt Columbia to the ground, no? Infinite BS done as a Grimm Fairytale with Mice ??? Is this Finks Lil Train for SeaSlugs ?? Bet they didn't consider(*) they could have had EVEN MORE salable (and PROFITABLE !!!) Ultra-Violence when they didn't even have Humans any more ... (*Sound of Ken Levine Slapping his head over and over muttering "Stupid... stupid ... stupid ...") '' In The MMORPG there can be ALL KINDS of delusional stuff presented (and acknowledged that it IS delusion) to expound imagination. An employee entrance ? So Gianourmously grand and with Overblown detail by about 100 times. This is what happens when you have hack artists and writers who haven't a clue about that world they are allegedly having this Columbia place reflect. Turning the place into something so FANTASTICAL ''even Walt Disney would Vomit At It, really didn't much serve that alleged game theme of criticizing the idea of American Exceptionalism. It reflects nothing real, so any 'social' relevancy they claim (endlessly) is hogwash. After taking the CASH, Comstock, now was revealed to be a Con Man, delivered what was considered a rather poor "Columbia" to the operators of the Exposition. He soon afterward disappeared. "Columbia", being deemed "A hazard to Life and Limb", was moored over the lake while the Exposition investors tried to hide their shame at being so duped. (( '' An Allegory for the Game Itself ??? '' )) Apparently there were MANY expositions in Europe for over 50 years before 1893. Here is a Diagram of an Exposition building for one in 1854. Note the scale (seen by size of tiny figures down on the ground). Looks like half of Columbia could have fit inside this one building. They had Venetian style Gondolas at the 1893 Exposition (picture here). Remember in the game those atrocious double cable-sitting 'gondolas' which supposedly transport people between parts of the city ? (( '' I cringe when I see stupidity like those things. *** Seriously, DONT EVER let "artists" design anything you trust your life to ... '' )) All part of the eclectically discoherant Columbian transit system, which made the place more a hell than a heaven (Imagine trying to get to work (and then again return) having to switch between 5 different types of transport, walking between each and waiting for each one. Good thing there were untermenschen slaves/serfs to do all the actual work in Columbia). Modern Diving Suit. Not much different from 1946. Note - it is pressurized with air to the same pressure as the water depth in operates in. So normal humans cannot use these much beyond 150 feet down (cuz of the pressure) Even beyond 60 feet is dangerous and inefficient because of the safety measures required - limited time allowed at depth(like 15 minutes), and a set waiting delays at different depths on the way up (taking a good part of an hour) to prevent nitrogen buildup in your body. Post-Turn of the Century American cities had telephone (and power) wires EVERYWHERE. Look at the rows of wires on this pole (each one was strung individually). Imagine Booker 'jumping' off a skyline and hitting wires like this, and being sliced up like by one of those hardboiled egg slicer kitchen things. RIIIIIGHT .... Jack (how?) is going to know when the plane is at that spot (coordinates...), which the plane WILL (STRANGELY/Conveniently) JUST HAPPEN to be flying over (the writer's airplane route/operations understanding ZERO, too ...) so he can jump up and hijack it. OH, did you miss the fact that its a given that he MURDERS everyone Onboard, BEFORE the game even starts in with YOU doing the slaughterfest-play thing ??? (( '' Kennyboi does seems to like making (YOU) the player a mass-murderer ... '' )) The original game had this coordinates idea (how Jack got to Rapture) be quite vague. The later sequel makers (who had THIS) should have left it that way, INSTEAD of demonstrating their lack of knowledge about what Latitude/Longitude are, and how they are ACTUALLY used by people/machines/airplanes. BaSx Writers : ' HEY !!! Lets spell it out big and THRUST our stupidity in the Players face !!! Good idea!! ... as we really don't want to go to the effort of creating new story, when we can just regurgitate and repeat/over-elaborate old ideas. ' -- Unfortunately WE are missing the Scene : Where Suchong has 4-year old Jack in a Flight Simulator, teaching him how to operate a modern jet airliner, and to do celestial navigation ... (Bet you didn't know that airliners, even today, still follow highways and railroad tracks on the ground to assist 'navigation' .) Suchong was a survivor. Do you seriously think that was HIM there dead, impaled on a Big Daddy Drill ? Built for prestige. Congested cities with VERY high real estate prices in their central areas made buildings like this plausible. They were still the exception. In Rapture with the additional expenses of undersea construction, buildings anything like this would have been even fewer (but some unimaginative artists couldn't/wouldn't figure that out -- that a 15 story building amongst 5 story ordinary buildings can look just as impressive -- so we got Skybox pictures of too narrow 60+ story monstrosities -- which for some reason most resembled this one - the Chrysler Building in New York City). Comstock's "Stairway to Heaven" scam was actually built. He left town just before the dedication ceremony with the unspent CASH that he would shortly use to fund his part of Columbia (or was it the bribes to the politicians to authorize taxpayer funds to build Columbia ???) The Little Sister conditioning was made to be a compulsion. The children were carrying out acts which would make many grownups physically sick. Little Sally was fully conditioned. I Don't know what they told the concept artist who came up with *THIS* OMG, a Cross ... Well that has to go. Mass-printing (those printing machines ?) of what looks like Illuminated Manuscripts ?? Very Pre-Renaissance/Medieval/Papist, and rather unexplained. (And having them draped about 'drying' is funny, too.) Did the concept artist ever get the Memo that the game was supposed to be "America", and not some weird flying Vatican ? That Strange thing hanging from that really awful overhead crane -- What is that ? A Confessional Booth or something ??? Or is that double track a Skyline ?? (Looks much like same goofy thing as seen in the BS:I game.) Seriously dude (artist), learn how an Overhead Crane works ( Oh, its just concept ??? - well a bit confusing then with all the other high details present ). All a bit too Popish for the faux-american religion living in Levine's brain (this artist must have missed the memo). All this in some huge manufacturing facility ? Its a might peculiar. Some Industrial-Scale Religion worshiping technology might have made a MUCH better plot setting for the whole faux-redemption storyline/plot thing, but it is a bit far too late for that ( that ship has sailed and SUNK ). . .